After Chaos Theory came a band based out of Fredericton, NB that we had heard nothing but good things about. In 2012 they were nominated for an ECMA in the Metal category and now here they are bringing their newest material to the 1st Maritime Metal & Hard Rock Festival. Vocalist Stephen McDonald is one scary and intense dude that demands your attention when they are on stage. McDonald’s intensity spreads to the remaining members with the first gut wrenching scream he let’s go. In order to share their intensity we have a video from today’s performance.
Trying to top the intensity that Hero’s Last Rite generated was going to be a tough task for sure. Nova Scotia rockers Big Game Hunt were given the task. While they were not near as in your face, their set was very well presented and rocked bigtime. The band is fronted by the same vocalist we saw earlier with Hitman and their guitarist is part of the next band to grace the stage, the Fed Pennies.
The next act The Fed Pennies were the winner of the 2011 East Coast Music Award for Loud Recording of the Year. Jake Smith and Aaron Farr used to be part of ECMA award winning, The Jimmy Swift band before leaving to start The Fed Pennies. I missed watching most of their set because I walked back to my car to retrieve something to ease my sore back and also grabbing a snack at the canteen. Thankfully my good friend Hammer was holding down the fort and getting video footage.
Well only 3 more bands left and Iron Giant was ready to take the stage. When we noticed Konjurer vocalist Chris Lewis back on stage, we had a good feeling of what was about to take place. When I was researching Iron Giant, their Facebook about page pretty much summed up our impression of the band. Here is a snippet from their Biography: “Iron Giant’s, Sabbath meets Motorhead monstrosity is the heaviest of the “Rock” with enough ball-rumbling groove to get the whole room going.” And they describe their music style as “Heavy ass, no class, white trash rock n roll”. After reading that we decided it’s probably best to leave it at that and let their video speak for them.
The final 2 bands are Nova Scotia acts and both of them represented NS very well. Black Moor was next on stage and they took us by surprise. We had not caught them live until now but we plan to make sure to see them again ASAP. They exhibited great musicianship and melodic dual guitar riffs similar to bands like Iron Maiden. If Black Moor comes to your town and you like good heavy music, make sure to check them out.
Last but not least Nova Scotia hard rockers Broken Ohms took to the stage. These dudes really deliver when it comes to their live shows and we recommend you check them out if they hit a venue close by. To give you an idea of their live performance make sure to check out their video below covering a Black Sabbath classic.
Well that concludes our coverage of the 1st Annual Maritime Metal and Hard Rock festival. We want to send a big shout out to all the bands that made this event what it was. We also want to thank Jay Chetwynd for allowing us on site to cover the show. What can we say except if you want it loud make sure you don’t miss out next September, it can only get bigger and better. See you all next year.
